This publication - Avon Calling: the Bristol Compilation - has come about as a result of my tenure as Writer-in-Residence, at Spike Island, Bristol, during the first few months of 2006. During that time I worked with a number of individuals from the Spike Island Interpretation Group 2 (or interp group), plus several writers from beyond Bristol. Avon Calling attempts to critically assess aspects of the position of visual art and artists in Bristol and seeks to offer fresh and critical perspectives on the ways in which a city such as Bristol deals with, and responds to, art and artists.

Texts by Karen Di Franco, Richard Hylton, Kwong Lee, Laura Mansfield, Lizi Sanchez and myself seek to look critically at aspects of the arts infrastructure in Bristol, in relation to the fortunes and profile of the city's artists. It is perhaps fortuitous that the British Art Show came to Bristol in the summer of 2006, as the arrival of this exhibition throws into sharp focus the decidedly mixed fortunes of Bristol's artists. Several of Avon Calling's texts consider the British Art Show and speculate on what this decidedly problematic exhibition might mean to Bristol artists and Bristol audiences.

Other contributions consider the nature of 'local' art practice in an art world seemingly dominated and mesmerised by a London hegemony, ideas of internationalism and assumptions about the need for mega-exhibitions.

Avon Calling is a collection of provocative and illuminating texts and represents an important contribution to debates and the nature and role of contemporary art and the multiple ways it which it might interface with a whole raft of concerns. The publication is available, free of charge, from Spike Island. 133 Cumberland Road, Bristol, BS1 6UX +44 (0)117 929 2266 or www.spikeisland.org.uk

Eddie Chambers